101: Breathwork for ADHD with Sachin Patel

The easiest thing I can. Easiest analogy I can give to people is that the breath is like the steering wheel of the nervous system. So are we breathing in a way that's steering us in the right direction, or are we breathing in a way that's steering us in an undesirable direction? That's a good place for a lot of people to start.

Welcome to the Soaring Child Podcast, where parents of children with ADHD learn tips and tricks to help their child soar at home, at school and in life. We feature interviews with experts, medical professionals, and parents just like you who are learning how to reduce ADHD symptoms using food and other natural strategies. Because children with ADHD deserves to soar just like every other child. I'm your host, Dana Kaye.

Hello, parents, this is Dana K. Here with another edition of the super Soaring Child podcast. Today, I'm very excited and intrigued by the episode. I came across my guest at a breath work session and I can't tell you how much this one session changed my life. I'm not going to dive into it now, and I think that I could actually have a whole episode on it. But after this session, I was crying. The emotions that were coming out of me were, were life changing. And so I could not wait to get him on the podcast today to talk about how breath work can actually help our children with ADHD thrive. So today we are honored to have a very special guest, Sachin Patel. Sachin is not just a father, a husband, but he is also a philanthropist father, functional medicine practice success coach, speaker, author, breath work facilitator, and plant medicine advocate. His philosophy, and I like this philosophy, is that the doctor of the future is the patient. He is dedicated to raising consciousness and activating the inner doctor in everyone through lifestyle changes and breath work. He's the founder of the Living Proof Institute and he has been at the forefront of patient centered healthcare revolution. Through his Perfect Practice mentorship program, he has empowered hundreds of practitioners globally to provide affordable and inspired care. So today we're going to delve into Sachin's insight on breath work and breathing for the brain, which is a critical aspect of supporting not just our children with adhd, but, but definitely ourselves as parents and caregivers. So now it's time to welcome Satchin Patel to the Soaring Child. Hi, Satchin. Thanks so much for joining us.

Anna. It's my pleasure, my honor. I am so excited for our conversation today and I've been looking forward to it all week. So thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for hosting me today.

You are welcome. I have been looking forward to it all week, more like all month. And we're almost at the end of the month. I can't believe it. Almost at the end of the year. Wow. Well, Sachin, you know, you've got a lot of history and experience in functional medicine, but what actually sort of inspired you to get into breath work?

Yeah, great question. You know, I've always been looking for simple solutions. That's always been at the forefront of and at the top of my hierarchy. The, the simpler it is, the easier it is to teach people, the easier it is to teach my team members to help other people. And it's easy for people to implement into their lifestyle. And so on that quest I discovered many different things. And a few years ago I discovered breath at a WIM HOF training that I went to. And at that training we, we went through these different breathing techniques and it was all new to me at the time. And by the end of it I was able to hold my breath for about three and a half minutes which was, which was kind of crazy and at the same time and I was like, wow, like there's so much here to unpack. And then, you know, fast forward a few months from there I attended a full out breathwork session, kind of like the one I facilitated for you. And it completely changed my life just like it did for you. It unlocked emotions, bubbled to the surface like unconditional love and what that felt like. And it was very similar to a plant medicine type of journey. But I was able to do it with my breath. So it was really fascinating to me to see, wow, I can hold my breath for extended periods of time. If I prepare my body correctly, I can have transformational experiences and almost psychedelic type experiences using my breath. How cool is that? And then there's this in between which is how am I breathing when I'm not doing those things? And nobody was really talking about that. So in about around 20, 20, 2019, 2020, my son, who was I guess 10 at the time, I was going to go see the dentist and the dentist took an X ray of his teeth and said, we have a problem here. He doesn't have enough room for his teeth to come down. And so we went to three different dentists and, and they all recommended that we pull some teeth. And you know, as a chiropractor, my philosophy is that God don't make no junk. So there's gotta be something to this. I can't imagine a human being not having Enough room for their teeth. Like, what would they have done a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, if they didn't have the ability to just pull these teeth out like this? Turns out that after shopping around through different dentists, that this is a common practice. It's a common practice that when children's teeth come in, if they're overcrowded, dentists just pull the teeth, and to them, the problem goes away. Right around that time, James Nestor's book Breath came out, and I heard him speak at a genius network event I was attending. And that really kind of lit me up, because one of the things he talked about was how breathing changes our facial structure, and specifically the positioning of our tongue changes how our upper palate forms. And if we don't position our tongue correctly, which we'll talk about a little bit more, that actually creates a smaller, narrower upper palate. And the resulting situation from that is that teeth show up, overcrowded dentists pull those teeth, and then they put braces on, and these children have perfectly beautiful smiles, but their airways are really narrow and small. So then later on in life, they start developing other health issues, particularly associated to the respiratory system. And of course, reading this during a time when Covid was spreading rampantly around the world, I quickly realized that we were paying attention to all the things my son was doing, how much he was moving, his sleep time, his wake time, getting outside, getting sunlight, eating healthy, organic foods. But we were never paying attention to how he was breathing. And it's because we just assumed he was doing it correctly because he's alive and he's breathing. And it turns out, as we went back in retrospect, we realized that he would always wake up with drool on his pillow. His mouth would be open, and it was so cute when we would take pictures of him while he was sleeping. And. And he had a rambunctious behavior as well. Right. And maybe somewhere on the ADD ADHD spectrum, not quite diagnosed, but, you know, he had his own personality quirks. And what we later realized was that he was a mouth breather. And that mouth breathing is what resulted in the, you know, malformation of his facial structure. His hard palate, perhaps, was resulting in his behavior in school. Right. You know, not causing trouble, but being disruptive. Right. Which then obviously is not a good situation. So we started following the principles and practices. We. We fired all of the dentists that we actually. We never hired them, but we found a dentist who focuses on airway dentistry. And so for all the parents that are listening to this airway dentistry, especially if your children are younger, you want to see a dentist that specializes in the airway. Because what they look at is they don't just look at the teeth from a cosmetic perspective. They look at the entire face. And when we change the way somebody breathes, we change their entire health. You know, the breath is. It's, it's. It's very elusive because it's invisible, right? It's very. It. It's something that's easy to overlook. However, it's one of the most.

Do it naturally. No, you don't even think about it. It just happens.

And. And nobody, but nobody's taught us how to do it, right? Like, I was like, 40 when I learned how to breathe correctly. And I'm 46 now. So it's been, you know, 40 years into my life. Fortunately, I was, you know, a nasal breather. Just naturally, I was a nasal breather versus being a mouth breather. But so many people these days are mouth breathers. And we can be occasional mouth breathers, right? If we're exerting ourselves, we might breathe through our mouth. But what I've discovered is that the average person is unconscious about how they breathe. And it's something that we do 23,000 times a day, whether we like it or not. And air, believe it or not, is the thing that we consume the most. The average person, the average adult, consumes about 30 pounds of air a day. So it's the biggest. It's the thing we interact with the most in our outside world. We only drink a couple of pounds of water a day. We only eat a couple pounds of food a day, not even in most cases, but we consume 30 pounds of air. So it's constantly informing our nervous system, it's constantly informing our metabolic system, it's constantly informing our lymphatic system and our cardiorespiratory system. So how we breathe plays a huge role in our immune health, plays a huge role in our energy levels, plays a huge role in how well we detoxify and eliminate toxicity from our body. In fact, 70% of the toxins in our body are actually eliminated through the lungs. So when we start thinking about it, it's like, it's a really fascinating topic. And literally, like, I could spend hours and hours talking about it, and I'd still be scratching the surface. So when I discovered this, I was like, why aren't more. Why didn't. Hey, first of all, why didn't I learn this in school? I've been through a ton of schooling I've taken postgraduate training, you know, gone through a bunch of functional medicine trainings. I'm like, we, we talk about breathing and you know, we, the most we, education we get about breathing is take a few deep breaths. Right. And then it kind of ends there.

Yes, maybe a bit of meditation or relaxation, but really that's it.

Right, exactly. And, and so what I realized when I discovered this is that this is the zenith of both simplicity and sophistication. So because of the various different breathing techniques that we could teach, the nostril that you breathe out of, the cadence at which you breathe, you know, how long you exhale and inhale the air, all of these things can be controlled and regulated. So it is a very sophisticated instrument of healing. And it's also very simple. We're already doing it. We just need to draw our consciousness to it and then make the minor adjustments and shifts so that now we're breathing in a way that prioritizes our health and favors our success when it comes to ADD or adhd. Sleep, mental clarity, focus, digestion, our mood, like all of those things are regulated by how we breathe. And you know, we just have countless examples of that. And you know, it's just unfortunate that more people don't know this, but I'm grateful for opportunities like this to kind of share the information and spread the light.

You know a lot about breathing and I am so grateful that you're here because some of the stuff that you're sharing for me is enlightening and it makes me want to learn more. So, so how does, how does breathing impact our children?

Great question. So if you think about it going back to the moment our child is born, it's like the first thing we try to pay attention to, right? It's, it's the one of the first interactions that their immune system has with the outside world is through their lungs. They inhale that air, their virgin lungs receive the air, and there, and it's, it's all receiving information. There's different, you know, there's different forms of breath work. So crying is a form of breath work. Sobbing is a form of breath work. Laughing is a form of breath work. Sighing is a form of breath work. So there's all these different breathing signatures which are ways our nervous system uses the breath to kind of self regulate itself. The breath is very important because it, you know, we, we utilize the air that we breathe, the oxygen in, you know, specifically to fuel our mitochondria. So just like a fire requires oxygen, the fire inside of each of Ourselves of mitochondria also requires oxygen. In fact, that's the only place in our body we use oxygen is in the mitochondria.

The mitochondria is for the listeners.

So the mitochondria is like the powerhouse of our cells. Yes, Right. So it's like, think of it like this. The battery in your cell phone, and the battery dies. It doesn't matter how good the phone is, it doesn't matter what apps you have on it. Everything else shuts off as well. So we. We need to breathe because it's something that's vital and essential for us. And. And of course, when we think back to our first breath, and then our parents, you know, when they. When they lay us down, they're always paying attention to, is the child breathing? Is the child breathing? Is the child breathing? But we. But what they may not be paying attention to is how is the child breathing? Right. So it's always a question of if, never a question of how. And the how is actually really important. Because we do breathe so often and because it's so informative to our nervous system, and because it's also informative to our facial structure, it sets us up for lifelong health. And so when. When my son was young, and many children are young, we're just happy they're breathing. We're not paying attention to whether their mouth is closed and they're breathing through their nose or if they're breathing through their mouth. And what you'll notice is that as children breathe through their mouth, it changes their facial structure. When children breathe through their nose, it improves their facial structure. They have nice wide upper palates, their teeth all fit in their face. Right. They have better occlusion that takes place when we breathe through our nose. It almost instantly calms our nervous system down when we are under stress. If we're running away from a lion, think about it. We're breathing with our mouth open because we're just trying to get as much oxygen in and carbon dioxide out as we possibly can. And when we breathe through our mouth, what's also quite interesting is, is especially children who breathe, even adults who breathe through their mouth, we're actually not getting as much oxygen out of the air as we possibly could. But also importantly, we're not expelling their carbon dioxide. And it's the CO2 that accumulates. That's what actually causes anxiety for people. That's what causes the attention deficit disorders. Because now these children, instead of being in a calm, relaxed state, the way they're breathing is informing their nervous system to be in a heightened, more alert state. And because of that, they can have a hard time focusing because we want them to be calm and relaxed. But the way they're breathing, which overrides the other processes. Right. Our breath overrides the brain. So what I mean by that is I can change. If I change how somebody breathes, it doesn't matter what they're thinking. So if I get somebody to start breathing fast and heavy, like they're going out for a run, it's. It doesn't matter how much they try to calm their mind, their physiology is going to be setting off a cascade of fight or flight in their body. And so how our children breathe and how we as adults breathe is super informative to the nervous system, to our cellular respiratory system, and also to our behavior as well.

Bach and this is absolute gold. And I can tell you that this is probably going to be one of the most shock shared episodes of the podcast today, because it is. It's absolutely fascinating, but it makes total sense, doesn't it? I mean, we just. You wouldn't think it, but it makes total sense because we just breathe every day. We're breathing in. I can't believe the amount of air that we're breathing in. I mean, it's not. That's something that you wouldn't even think about now. So parents are probably thinking, okay, this is all good and well. Yep, we know we need to breathe, but how do we do it properly?

Yeah. So I want to talk about a few things that I think are very crucial for. For us understanding. I know you talked about methylation in one of your previous episodes. And so one of the things that we're seeing that's very common now more and more, especially in, obviously, newborns, is tongue ties. And so a tongue tie often results when the little frenulum, the little, you know, piece of ligament on the bottom of the tongue is prominent, and it doesn't allow the tongue to sit in the roof of the mouth. And so what ends up happening is that it makes it difficult for feeding and. And the child has difficult time sucking. But will also happen often, is a child will use a pacifier or their thumb to soothe themselves. And the significance of that is that when they do that, the reason they're doing that is because there's a magic button at the roof of our mouth, and they're simply trying to push that button with their pacifier or with their thumb. Now, unfortunately, what happens when they do that is they push their upper palate upwards. So now their upper palate, instead of having a nice flat shape, has a U shape like this. But that volume now results in lower volume in the nasal cavity, so they end up with smaller sinuses and which makes it even more challenging for them to breathe through their nose. So if your child uses a pacifier or sucks on their thumb, do them and do yourself a huge favor and make sure that you do whatever it takes to get that tongue tie addressed, if that's the case, or to make sure they don't suck their thumb because it will completely change their facial structure. Now what happens when children have smaller sinuses? It's feels very difficult for them to breathe through the nose because the nose already pressurizes the air. The nose slow down, slows down the air that's going into our body. So I'll compare and contrast breathing through the nose and the mouth. So the nose was specifically designed for us to intake air. It's aligned with cilia, which filters the air. We have little hairs in our nose that filter the air mechanically. We also have a mucous membrane in the nose that's erectile, which means that it will expand and contract. So that's kind of interesting. But it's also an organ that produces nitric oxide. And nitric oxide is vital because what it, you know, it does a few things. One is it helps dilate blood vessels, more important in adults, but it also acts as our initial defense system against pathogens. So nitric oxide actually kills viruses and bacteria on contact, which means that when we breathe through our nose, we're killing those pathogens that would normally be entering into our lungs. So that's another important thing. When we breathe through our nose, we pressurize the air so we actually get 20% more oxygen out of each breath that we take. When we breathe through our nose, we moisture regulate the air, we temperature regulate the air, and we essentially cleanse the air. So we perfect the air before it goes into our lungs.

Our mouth. Air filter, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. Our mouth, on the other hand, is the dirtiest part of our body. So it doesn't pressurize the air, so we can't take deep breaths. In fact, it just packs the CO2 back down instead of releasing it properly. And our mouth is, is filled with bacteria that don't belong in our lungs. So every time we breathe in through our mouth, if we do that excessively, then we're breathing in all that bacteria. Now our immune system is on, you know, it's in a heightened state. Oftentimes children who are mouth breathers will develop adenoids and tonsils. And so they'll go to the doctor, and the doctor will say, well, he's. You know, he or she has tonsils. We got to pull the tonsils out. But that doesn't actually change the way they breathe. In fact, the way they breathe stays the same because nobody's done anything to fix it. The tonsil enlargement is actually caused by the dysfunctional breathing, and so oftentimes that aspect of it gets overlooked. So we want to always pay attention to how our children are breathing when they're doing their work, when they're. Especially when they're sleeping, because they don't know how they're breathing when they're sleeping and when they're playing video games or on the computer. Just pay attention to them, even when you're out going for a walk. My wife and I, we challenged ourselves. I was going to actually give a keynote on breathing. And I said, let's just count how many people, as adults breathe through their mouth when. When they're walking the city streets, right? Dirty air, right? Car pollution, like all kinds of stuff. And literally, there was only one person who was just going for a walk, walking from point A to point B, who's breathing through their nose. Everyone else is breathing through their mouth. Now, when they sit down at their desk, they're probably nose breathers, but when they're engaged in activity, they immediately go to mouth breathing, even though it's unnecessary. So pay attention to how your kids are breathing when they're active and also when they're inactive or they're sedentary, because, again, this is all information that's going to our nervous system. The easiest thing I can. Easiest analogy I can give to people is that the breath is like the steering wheel of the nervous system. So are we breathing in a way that's steering us in the right direction, or are we breathing in a way that's steering us in an undesirable direction? That's a good place for a lot of people to start.

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Yeah, great question. So I think, I think the first thing is to have that awareness, right? So we, we kind of become self aware of our children and then we have to raise awareness with our children as well. One of the things that I did with my son, he was old enough to comprehend this, was we did some nitric oxide testing with him. So we got these little saliva strips we tested as a nitric oxide. Cause he, he, you know, one of the first things that we had him do was start mouth taping and mouth taping. It sounds more intense than it actually is. It's actually a really simple thing. But he was a little reluctant at first. He's like, why do I have to do this? This is like, so weird. Even though my wife and I were doing it. And so we tested him. We said, well, let's test your nitric oxide levels when you don't mouth tape. Let's test them when you do mouth tape, and let's see if there's a difference. And so for him, he was old enough to kind of realize, oh, like, when I, when I breathe through my mouth or when I sleep without mouth tape, then my nitric oxide levels are really low. And because he's, he's an athlete, he loves playing sports. I explained to him in his terms what nitric oxide means to his body and how if he wants to run circles around his friends, one of the most important things that he can do is learn how to breathe correctly. And that'll be his unfair advantage. Cause he's not particularly tall or muscular, but he can run circles around people because he knows how to breathe. Most people don't. Most people are gassed, and he's still going because of that. So attach breathing to something that they like doing and want to do better. So if your kids, for example, love video games, show them and tell them that, hey, you're going to be better at playing video games if you breathe correctly. Right. Or if they love sports. Right. They're going to be better at sports if they learn how to breathe correctly. Right. One of the biggest advantages that athletes are discovering now is, is learning how to breathe. So they have amazing metabolic health, except that they don't know how to breathe properly. And so, like a lot of breathwork, coaches are going into athletic teams and locker rooms and teaching them how to breathe correctly. So, you know, attach breathing to something that they enjoy doing and show them and tell them and explain to them how they can do it better. Other things that you want to pay attention to is, is just raising it, raising their awareness around it. Right. So know if, if my son is on the basketball court and he's breathing through his mouth, I'll just do this. That's. That's our cue.

And for those that are listening and not watching the video, Sachin was touching his nose just to, you know, as a signal to show his son to breathe through his nose.

Yeah. Because. Because our kids are always looking to us for reassurance. Right. So he'll. He'll, like, run up and down the court, and every time he does, makes a play or does a pass, he's always looking for my approval and you know, part of that is going to be like me giving him feedback. So I'll just tap my nose and, and then that'll be his cue that, hey, I need to be a little bit better about breathing through my nose versus my mouth. Other things that we can do is associate the. Or. The one thing that I encourage people to do is if their children are an appropriate age. And of course, I don't want to give health advice here, but the recommendation that I was given and what we did for our son was we started taping his mouth at night. And mouth taping sounds scary, right? The idea of taping somebody's mouth shut can conjure up feelings of claustrophobia for some people or some people gone through traumatic things. But the idea here is to not seal their mouth. It's just to keep their mouth in a closed position. So the way we do that is by placing a piece of tape vertically. Okay. So just up and down. We use a 1 inch tape and it's called 3M micropore tape. So you don't have to get fancy, expensive tapes. There are certainly those out there. And I'm not, you know, discouraging you from getting those, but, you know, it doesn't have to be expensive. And a 3M micropore tape will cost you 3, 4 bucks and it'll last like several months. So it's a very inexpensive solution. If you don't like the idea of taping your, your child's mouth in that position again, when they tape their mouth, they can still talk and they can still breathe through their mouth.

It's just the center of the center of the mouth. Hor between top and bottom lips.

Vertically.

Yeah, I mean, vertically, of course. Sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit challenged when it comes to my left and my rights. My husband always says when we're driving, he's like, is that the real left or your left?

Well, you had it right. You had.

I had a listening.

You had it right. You just. I just wanted to make sure that.

Yes, vertically.

So, so vertically. We're going to place it vertically. And then what I also like to encourage people to do is if the mouth taping is uncomfortable or the thought of it is not favorable, you can also get chin straps. So you can buy chin straps for adults and for children. And the idea here is just to keep the mouth and chin or the mouth in a closed position so the tongue sits at the roof of the mouth and it allows us to breathe through our nose. Now, some people are going to have stuffy noses, especially if they're habitual mouth breathers. So the interesting thing about the nose is that if we don't use it, we lose it. So in people who've had tracheotomies, for example, and now they're breathing through basically a hole in their neck, what they discovered is their nose completely seals up. Interesting, because if we're not moving air through it, right, and there's stagnation there, just creates more likelihood of infection and other challenges. So the body's smart. It just says, hey, you're not using this thing. I'm going to seal it up. So the more we breathe through our nose over time, the more it actually opens up. And so it might feel a little bit weird in the beginning, especially for your children. Especially because when we breathe through our nose, it slows the air down. So it's going to feel like they're getting less. Even though, paradoxically, they're getting more oxygen, it's going to feel like they're getting less air. So prepare them for that, you know, because they're going to feel that resistance. Another thing that some children might benefit from are nasal strips. So depending on how old your child is. My son is 13, as I mentioned, he wears nasal strips, and that's to kind of open up the nostrils, making it easier to breathe. And then we also use something called Nasia oil. So Nasya oil is an Ayurvedic formula. And a couple of drops in each nostril opens up the sinuses, opens up or lubricates the breathing airways, and it's. It's great for mental clarity as well. So it's a great tool for entrepreneurs to use like us, but also a great tool for children as well. So just a couple of drops with their head tilted backwards is going to be greatly beneficial. Now, there are.

I will drop some resources in the show notes for families if they're interested in looking at any of the things that Sachin's mentioned. Because I can tell you I'll be going out and getting some of that oil for myself.

Yeah, so it's N A S Y A. And it's made by a company called Banyan Botanical. Again, very inexpensive. It's like $12 for a bottle of it, and it'll last you, you know, quite, quite some time. You just need a couple of drops in each nose. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that sometimes children may have congestion in their nose and even adults may have congestion in their nose. So there's actually nose clearing exercises that you can do. And then within a few minutes, your nose actually opens up. So I can, I can show you how to do that and talk you through it. It's really simple. You'll just take a, a few normal breaths. And when we breathe out, so the inhalation is active, the exhalation is passive. And so what we're do is we'll take just a couple breaths in, in and out through the nose, one more in and out through the nose. And on the exhale this time, what you're going to do is you're just going to put yourself in a relaxed exhale, which means you're not going to force the exhale, you're just going to let your diaphragm kind of float. And once you're in that neutral position, you're going to plug your nose. And when you plug your nose, you're going to move your head around. So you're just going to move your head around like this, obviously not talking. Stay nice and quiet. And then when you feel a, you know, a moderate urge to breathe again, you'll breathe again, take a few deep breaths and then you repeat that until your nose clears. And it works like magic. So usually within a minute or two, people's noses start clearing up and they can start breathing again. And then of course, if somebody has challenges breathing their nose due to congestion, then eliminating problematic foods like mucogenic foods like dairy can also be beneficial. And you know, just like you would, at least I recommend this. I'm sure you do too. Having a good air purifier in the room is also good because, you know, you know, on average we consume 30 pounds of air a day. Ten pounds of it is while we're sleeping, statistically at least. And we want to breathe in nice, clean, fresh air that doesn't have all this particulate and gunk in it. So having a nice air purifier in the room is also something else that can be helpful for children.

100%. These tips have been amazing, Sachin. I mean, I could go on and I could talk about this all day. This is just like opened a whole new world for me. I know you briefly touched on it and you know, this, this episode might go a little bit longer than normal, if that's okay. But I know you briefly touched on, you know, why breath so important for health and for the body. But can you discuss the relationship between breath, work and mood and behavior? Because I think that that would be really important, important to understand for, for our listeners.

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, the breath is. Is the steering wheel of the nervous system. And so, generally speaking, when we want our children or even ourselves to feel calm and at peace and relaxed, our breath, there's a corresponding breath for that. If I was running away from a lion, there'd be a corresponding breath for that. And so just like. Just like anything, we want our nervous system to match our desired state, and our nervous system is steered by our breath. So if I want somebody to be in a relaxed state where they can be present, they can be focused, and have better productivity, then I want to have a matching breath that goes with that. So one of the ways that we encourage adults to breathe and the same pattern is going to hold true for children, but they might have to adjust the length of. Is by gently placing their tongue at the roof of their mouth and then breathing in for six seconds or a count of six and breathing out for a count of six. So it's gonna feel like a long, slow breath for children. You might adjust it to 3 seconds or 4 seconds, depending on the age of the child, but that's gonna really slow them down. It's gonna put them into a state of coherence. And as you and I both know, and maybe our listeners know, when we're in a state of coherence, our heart and our brain are very much connected to one another. Okay? So our nervous system is now being given the input signal that we're calm, we're relaxed, we can be creative, right? We can be expansive in our thinking, and we can be focused and present. On the opposite end of that spectrum would be breathing through our mouth with our tongue hanging out of the roof, hanging out of our mouth, essentially taking short, shallow breaths. Those short, shallow breaths actually make our cardiovascular system work harder than it needs to. It also signals to our body that we're in a state of fight or flight. And when we're in that leaning more towards fight or flight, then our focus, our memory, our productivity, our creativity, all of those things will start to suffer. And so just by simply changing the cadence at which we breathe can make a huge difference. Now, there's other breathing techniques that. That I can recommend that I think would be helpful as well. One of them is humming. So humming is actually a very powerful way to increase nitric oxide. When we increase nitric oxide, we dilate our blood vessels, we get more blood flow to the brain. We also get better cognition, and we have lower blood pressure as well and better immunity. So humming, you know, breathing through our nose increases nitric oxide sixfold. Breathing through our humming through our nose increases it 15 fold.

Wow.

So if your children love to hum, right. Sometimes that's a good thing for you to encourage them to do. Sometimes they might be listening to a song and they don't know all the words. Encourage them to hum along. Okay. When we hum, our tongue is naturally at the roof of our mouth and we're breathing, slowing down our exhale and breathing out through our nose, that's going to increase CO2 tolerance. It's going to dilate our blood vessels, increase nitric oxide levels as well. So those things can be beneficial. And I mean, there's of course, so much we can talk about, but I think those are some good places for people to get started for sure.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, like, you know, one more thing I wanted to remind people of just as adults as well, I think this is helpful for people to note is that our breathing affects not just our nervous system, but it also affects our, our cardiac system. So when we take a deep breath in or any breath in, our lungs expand and contract and that expansion and contract and squeezes our heart. So if you want to give your heart a hug, one of the best ways to do that is to take a nice deep breath in. Our lungs expand inwards, giving our heart a nice pump. So think about when you experience something extremely stressful, right? The first thing that happens is we gasp, right? That sharp inhale pumps our heart, which then increases blood pressure instantaneously to get blood to our arms and legs so we can run away from whatever is chasing us. The opposite is true. When we feel a sense of relief, we sigh, right? So when we feel like, oh my God, finally that thing is over, what a relief, you can actually exaggerate the sigh. We call it a physiologic sigh. And this will instantaneously calm your nervous system down. And the way we do that is by taking a three stage breath. So we breathe into our bellies, into our lungs, and then into our neck. So it's, we hold at the top and then release with an audible sigh through the mouth. So doing that three to four times, maybe five to six times, depending on the day you've had, will almost instantly calm your nervous system down. So there's so many clues that, you know, our body leaves us, right? There's so many things that it does that we could tap into and pay attention to. So sighing, that physiologic sigh followed by a three step breath is a really powerful way for us to alleviate stress. The other thing to keep in Mind is that breathing also plays a role in our lymphatic system, so that some of the biggest lymph nodes in our body are underneath our diaphragm. So every time our diaphragm moves up and down, it actually is pumping the lymph out of our trunk organs, our. In our periphery, in our arms and legs, Our lymphatic system is woven into our muscles, whereas our organs don't have that. What they rely on is the abdominal wall and the diaphragm moving up and down appropriately with each breath we take. So children or adults who have short, shallow breathing, their body's in a fight or flight state, their lymphatic system is not getting pumped properly, they're probably not making nitric oxide, so they're losing the cognitive and cardiovascular benefits of that. And their heart has to work a lot harder because the lungs and the diaphragm aren't adequately moving it. The diaphragm is referred to as the second heart, so its job. 40% of our blood pressure actually comes from our diaphragm moving up and down rhythmically, which each breath we take. So if an adult is struggling with hypertension, you know, of course the kind of mainstream approach and even the functional medicine approach might be to give them supplements, but I focus on the mechanical aspects of their breath because 40% of their blood pressure actually comes and is determined by how well they actually breathe.

Fascinating. Oh, my God. Sachin. This has been a wealth of knowledge and I am sure all of our listeners have just gonna. It's gonna take away so much from today's episode. I think that's a great place to finish up, but as I said, I could talk to you all day long, But I want to thank you for just joining me today for sharing your knowledge, your experience with all our listeners, like your expertise, your guidance, you know, have undoubtedly shed light on how breath work can just be transformative for our kids and for their parents and for pretty much the whole world. Please tell listeners where they can find and follow you online.

Yeah, sure. I mean, there's certainly you can find me on Facebook. That's where I'm raw, unadulterated, unfiltered on my personal Facebook page. And then I've also created a tool for. For anyone who wants to go deeper into this breath work rabbit hole. And it's simple. It's breath work with Sachin. And in there I share, you know, retreat retreat notes from my retreat with James Nestor. I share a stop snoring guide for both adults and children.

I share one for my husband.

I share some keynotes that I've done and I also offer the slides to people who want them. So, you know, it's all in there. It's all free. They say the best things in life are free. That's. That's my free gift to the world.

Oh, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much. We will share those links in the show notes below, but thank you once again for joining me today. Now, listeners, you know that your support means everything to us. If you found today's episode helpful, which I am sure you did, please share it with other others that might benefit. You know, making and sharing it with others just makes that significant difference to so many families out there that are struggling with kids with ADHD that are looking for those natural and strategies to support them. And lastly, if you could take a moment, just leave us a review on the podcast, we'd be so, so grateful. Your feedback not only helps us improve, but also enables us to reach and empower more families and give them hope and encouragement. Listeners, thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the Soaring Child. I'm Dana Kaye, your ADHD health practitioner. Keep on thriving.

Thank you for listening to the Soaring Child podcast today. To learn more about how to help your child with ADHD SOAR using natural strategies, visit our website at adhdthriveinstitute.com and follow us on social media. Dhdthriveinstitute.